At places wherein a plurality of electrical appliances are used, for instance, beauty shops, storage and maintenance of the electrical appliances, such as blow dryers, curling irons, clippers, are unpleasant associated conditions of the workplace. Often the plurality of electrical appliances are restricted to a confined area, therefore these devices are hanged from the hooks by their electrical cords with their electrical plugs connected to the receptacles. When a user switches from using appliance to another, the electrical appliances must be moved, and their electrical cords may become entangled, twisted or at times pulled out from the receptacles. In order to disentangle and maintain the electrical cords involves added time and effort on the part of the user. Further, there is always a possibility of an electrical short circuit happening because of the entangling and manipulation of the electrical cords. Furthermore, the entangling of electrical cords of the electrical appliances increase the possibility of electrical fires in a work zone and also increases the possibility of burns caused by the electrical appliances lying around on surfaces in work zones where the appliances may be touched by a user accidentally.
In order to overcome these problems a number of approaches have been proposed in the past. U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,275 to Brock discloses a cord organizing system for cosmetology tools. The system includes cord retractor mounted on the workstation for retracting the cord of the electrical appliance. A locking grommet cord and slot prevents the movement forces on the electrical appliance during extension and retraction. However, the Brock patent cannot store large number of electrical appliances. Further, the system proposed in the Brock patent is very complex and can only be mounted on the side of wall. Additionally, the presence of cord retractor may cause wear and tear in the cord of the electrical appliance because every time the electrical appliance is used, the cord will be extended and then retracted back. The Brock invention also requires a great amount of effort to pull out the selected electrical appliance because of presence of cord retractor.
US Patent Publication No. 20050106935 to Pena discloses an overhead storage device for plurality of electrical appliances. The device includes a casing that encloses an extension cord system. The casing has slots that allow access to the retractable cords of the electrical appliances. The cord system includes a plurality of spring loaded and ratcheted reels containing cords of electrical appliances. However, the overhead storage device of the Pena patent is complex and, further, the cords are retractable thereby increasing the possibility of the wear and tear of the cords.
Given the state of the prior art, there exists a need for having an overhead device for storing and managing the accessibility of a plurality of electrical appliances. It is desirable to have the overhead device that ensures that the entangling of the electrical cords of the electrical appliances does not happen. It is also desirable that a minimum effort is required while selecting and enabling a particular electrical appliance for use. In addition, it is preferred that the device be configured with minimum configurational complexities in order to reduce the wear and tear in electrical cords. Furthermore, such a device should be simple and easy to use.